by J. L. Wilder
Jack groaned, even as Gabbi took him by the back of the head and steered him towards the stairs. “I’m not a baby.”
Gabbi snorted. “You’re the definition of a baby.”
Sasha crossed over to Maggie and cupped her face. “I’m fine, Mags. Look at me. Don’t I look fine?”
“You better be fine. I can’t do this without you.” Shaking her head and blowing out a shaky breath, she chewed on her nail. “I haven’t even been back for a day and I’ve already messed up so huge. I need you. I’ve always needed you, so you better be fine.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Mags. And if a little cancer brought you back to me, then I’m okay with it.” She saw Maggie start to argue and slapped her hand over her mouth. “I mean it. I’ve missed you. It’s awful that we’re just getting to meet Milo. And god, I’m exhausted. I was exhausted before the cancer, but now I can barely deal with these kids.”
“You were welcome at my house. Always.”
“Us in Los Angeles? Jack sets things on fire once a week. The girls attract more trouble than they’re worth, even in a town the size of Brady. It was too risky.”
Maggie wrapped her arms around her sister’s waist and held her tight, even when Sasha tried to pull free. “No. Just let me hug you.”
“You’ve gotten mushy in your old age.”
“How come you didn’t mention that wild sex at forty leaves your back aching?” Maggie grunted. “Speaking of being old.”
“How the hell would I know that? It’s been close to a decade since I had anything remotely resembling wild sex. Thank you for reminding me, though.” She pushed Maggie away and scowled. “Also, my back aches just because. I don’t need sex as an excuse.”
“Something to look forward to, I guess?”
At the sound of Jack screaming from upstairs, Sasha clicked her tongue. “There’s something else for you to look forward to.”
Maggie stayed downstairs while Sasha went to see what was happening with her kids. She leaned against the kitchen counter and raked her hands through her tangled hair. She needed a shower and a Tylenol. Maybe some magical pill to erase what she’d done with Maverick.
It just went to show that she needed to say away from the Walker men. She might’ve spent years and years perfecting her calm appearance, but it was clear that where the Walker men were concerned, she was weak.
“Maggie...”
Walking over to the stairs, she looked up at Sasha. “What is it?”
“Milo is awake, and apparently, he learned a few new words today.” Clearly fighting a laugh, she looked back over her shoulder. “Why don’t you come up here and listen for yourself?”
Maggie’s entire body went cold as she thought of what he could’ve heard. “Oh, god.”
Racing up the stairs, she got there to find the kids in fits of giggles as Milo bounced in the middle of them.
Looking up at his mom, he grinned wide and opened his cute little mouth to utter a wildly inappropriate string of four-letter words. Maggie’s eyes widened, and she felt the need to try to cover for herself.
“He didn’t learn that from me!”
It was too late, though. The room officially knew who she’d been with and some of the things that had been uttered in passion. What an embarrassing moment.
6.
***Sawyer***
Sawyer looked over at Wyatt and sighed. “This is going to make a mess of things, isn’t it?”
Wyatt never took his eyes off the road, but the tension in his shoulders was severe. “You trying to suggest that things weren’t already a mess?”
Looking out at the mountainside on the drive up to Maverick’s house, Sawyer thought of just how messy things had gotten. The land he was looking at should’ve been theirs. They were in line to be the next pack alphas. None of that mattered anymore, though.
He sighed again. That was pretty much all he’d been able to do since finding out that Ray and Jessi Flint were having a kid. A kid that pushed them into the alpha position. They weren’t supposed to be the alphas. They weren’t cut out for it. Ray was an angry and borderline abusive asshole who deserved to be kicked out of the clan for his attitude towards the other dragons in their clan alone. Jessi wasn’t any better. She was power hungry and would do anything to have it. She’d even tried to sleep with him when she thought they were a sure thing to be alphas.
“What is she doing back here?” Wyatt’s quiet sentence exposed the sensitive side of his personality, the side that damaged easily.
Sawyer shook his head. “I heard that Sasha was sick, but no one told me it was anything serious. Why else would she be back, though?”
“I can already smell her all around. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to handle this shit.”
They were all on edge. Finding out that their lifelong dream and destiny to be alphas was ruined had shocked them. They had plans and goals, all set around how they wanted to take care of the clan and their family, but that was all wrecked. The ancient rules of the clan were screwing them over. An alpha can only become an alpha if there is an heir present. They needed a kid.
It wasn’t like they hadn’t tried. Sawyer had. He’d negotiated relationships with strong women who knew that he didn’t want love or a relationship. He’d waited and waited for one of them to announce that they were pregnant, but nothing ever happened. Wyatt had never tried, but he knew Maverick wasn’t a saint. Yet, no heirs had ever been produced.
Ray and Jessi hadn’t had an issue. They were going to be announced as alphas as soon as the child was born. The Walker men would fade away into the clan and take their plans with them.
“Fuck.” Sawyer slammed his fist into the dash and groaned as it cracked and the radio went out. He looked over at Wyatt’s exasperated expression and apologized. “Sorry. I just can’t handle any of this shit. I can’t believe she’s back after all this time. How long has it been? Over two decades?”
“Just over. Twenty-two years and a few months.” Laughing bitterly, Wyatt parked in front of Maverick’s house and turned the truck off. “Not that I’m counting. And you owe me for the radio and the dash.”
“Bill me.” Sawyer got out of the truck and his dragon perked up. He lifted his nose and inhaled deeply. Maggie.
Wyatt swore and hurried up the steps to Maverick’s door. “That fucking asshole.”
Hurrying after his brother, he got there just in time for Maverick to open the door and Wyatt to charge in at him, grabbing him around the neck and holding him in a choke hold. Sawyer could tell that there was no real energy put into the hold, but still, Maverick shouted.
“What the fuck!”
The scent of Maggie hung heavily in the air. Not just Maggie, but Maggie’s sex. Her sweet scent was so fresh in the air that Sawyer could still taste it on his tongue. She’d just left, it seemed. After sex with his brother.
“What the fuck is right! We came to warn you that Maggie was back in town, but I guess we shouldn’t have bothered. You wasted no fucking time, did you?”
Wyatt shoved Maverick away from him and stormed over to the liquor cabinet. Pouring himself a glass of whiskey, he shot it back before glaring back at Maverick. “We made a promise to each other. None of us would touch Maggie again.”
Maverick ran his hands through his hair and sank into his couch. “I fucking know. There’s more than that, though.”
“More than you breaking a promise we made to each other and taking the woman we all cared for as your own plaything? More than that?”
“Yep.”
Sawyer growled and poured his own glass of whiskey. “You’re shitting me. What else could there be?”
“She has a kid.”
Sawyer felt the words in his gut, like a hammer slamming into him over and over again. She had a kid. Did that mean she’d met someone? Was she still with them? And sleeping with Mav? It made no sense. Maggie had never been a bad person. She wasn’t the cheating type. Sawyer shook his head at his thoughts. Maggie had been with him and his
two brothers at the same time. It hadn’t been cheating, though. She’d never lied or hid from them. Not that it’d made it feel any better.
Wyatt sank onto the coffee table and rested his elbows on his knees. He was still in his work uniform, worn jeans and a flannel. There was dirt on his pants and boots, and the smell of animal clung to him. “She has a kid.”
“Not just any kid.” Maverick sat forward and shook his head like he wasn’t sure what to think. “A Walker kid.”
Sawyer jerked his eyes to his brother. “What the hell are you talking about? None of us have talked to her in twenty-two years. Are you trying to tell me that she has an adult kid?”
“No. She has a two-year-old son named Milo.” Maverick rubbed at his face. “My kid. She was in town around three years ago, and we ran into each other. One thing led to another and we ended up back here for the night. By the time I woke up, she was already gone.”
“You did that? You saw her behind our backs and kept it a secret? Did you learn nothing from the first time? I smelled her, you know. It was around three years ago. Sawyer was out of town and you were covering at the lumber yard. I thought I was losing my mind because you didn’t mention it, so I just stayed on the ranch, thinking I’d finally lost it.” Wyatt stood up and paced in front of the fireplace. “I can’t think with the smell of her in here so strong. Jesus.”
Sawyer glared down at Maverick. They were triplets, as close as brothers could be, but there’d been a long time that they didn’t speak. They’d let Maggie almost destroy them once before, and no matter how much they thought they were past it, it seemed that they really weren’t. “You lied to us. You made Wyatt think he’d lost his shit. More importantly, you have a kid with her. Did you know before this?”
Maverick scoffed. “No. Like I would’ve kept that secret. We’re being kicked out of the alpha position because we don’t have an heir. Do you think I wouldn’t have brought up having a kid before now? I didn’t know. She kept it from me. Kept him from me.”
Sawyer’s mind slowed, and a wash of clarity hit him. “Holy shit. We have an heir.”
Wyatt stopped pacing and crossed his arms over his chest. “All this time we spent panicking and we’ve had an heir for two years.”
Maverick nodded. “Yeah. We have to tell the leaders. Ray and Jessi are out.”
Sawyer didn’t feel happy like he thought he would. Instead, he couldn’t get over the smell of Maggie and the knowledge that she’d come from another man’s touch. It didn’t make it easier to know that it was his brother’s. He’d never stopped wanting Maggie, never stopped thinking of her.
Wyatt, too, seemed to be stuck in his own head, lost in thoughts of Maggie. She’d left her mark on all of them, in her own way. She’d torn through them like a fucking wrecking ball and left nothing but destruction in her path. None of them even blamed her. She’d been a teenager. She’d been wild and out of control, just doing what felt good. She hadn’t meant to hurt them.
“I can’t believe she had my kid and never told me.” Maverick shook his head. “He looks like us. Just like us. He smells like us, but with Maggie’s sweetness.”
Feeling defeated, Sawyer moved towards the couch but saw the shredded couch cushion and glared at his brother instead. “Nothing’s changed.”
“What do you mean?”
“I still want to beat the shit out of you for having sex with her. Her having your kid isn’t making it easier.” Shaking his head, Sawyer sank into one of the chairs in the room instead. “Focusing on other things, we’re going to need to announce this at the meeting.”
Wyatt walked to the door and opened it. “I have to get out of here. If you’re coming with me, you’d better come on. I need to get back to the ranch.”
“I’m coming. I need to put together a game plan on how best to announce this. People are going to question it, with us announcing right after Ray and Jessi.”
Maverick shrugged. “One smell of the kid and they’ll know he’s a Walker. Guys, I...I didn’t mean for any of this to happen, but I’m not sorry.”
Wyatt stopped and looked back at his brother. “None of us would be.”
7.
***Maggie***
“I can’t believe you dragged me out to this. This is ridiculous.” Maggie kept her voice low and her head turned in to talk to Sasha. “I don’t need to be here.”
Sasha rolled her eyes at her sister’s dramatics. “Relax, Maggie. It’s just a clan meeting.”
“Meaning everyone in the clan will be here.”
“Not everyone. There are some people who went out of town to see the leaves changing farther north.” At Maggie’s groan, Sasha chuckled. “It’s going to be fine. Maybe no one will remember what a rebellious teen you were.”
“Fat chance of that happening. Up until a year ago, Gregory Malvern still sent me a card on the anniversary of his garden’s death. Inside was always a letter filled with content for me and how awful I was.”
Sasha laughed, drawing more attention to them. “Oh, my god, that man was a hoot. It’s too bad about how he died.”
“He died?”
“Yeah. Of a broken heart in the skeletal remains of his garden, still clutching the lifeless body of his prized roses.”
She elbowed her and snarled. “Dammit, Sasha! I’m being serious.”
“So am I. He died right there in his garden. People heard him crying right before.”
Maggie was almost feeling horrible when she looked up and watched the man himself walk into the meeting. He was older but definitely still alive. She glared at her sister and contemplated leaving. “I hate you.”
Gregory’s eyes went straight to her and narrowed. His meaty hands went to his hips and he looked like he was on his way over to give her a piece of his mind when a commotion at the front of the room drew his attention.
It drew everyone’s attention. There was no way the three men could ever walk into a room without it being a commotion. With a sinking feeling in her stomach, Maggie watched as Sawyer, Wyatt, and Maverick Walker all entered the room from a door off the side of the front and scanned the crowd.
Before they landed on her, she was already sinking in her chair.
The sight of the three of them should’ve horrified her. She’d made her biggest mistakes with them. Instead of feeling horror, she was shocked to feel her body responding to just the sight of them.
“Holy shit,” Sasha muttered under her breath and then leaned into Maggie. “I think I’m going to like this part.”
“What do you mean?” Maggie frantically looked at her sister. “What part? What are you talking about?”
The air in the room changed, and before Maggie could get an answer, her attention was drawn away from her sister and to the shift in energy. She looked back at the spot where the three Walker brothers had just been standing and gasped when she saw they were all three moving towards her. Big, tough, hot as hell, they moved with so much grace. Maggie thought about running away, but she knew that she’d never get away from them, not if they wanted her.
What did that say about the last two decades? She blinked that thought away and leaned into Sasha. Like Sasha would help her. Sasha would probably do something to embarrass her further.
The three men stopped right in front of her and Sawyer spoke first. “Maggie, it’s good to see you.”
Sasha leaned forward and smiled at the three men. “What a nice surprise, seeing all three of you here together.”
Maverick raised his eyebrows at Sasha and shrugged. “I think you know why.”
Sasha just smiled, but Maggie looked between the two of them in confusion. “What’s going on?”
Sawyer reached out and touched her shoulder, sending a jolt of fire down to her core that had no business reacting the way it was. “Can we talk to you for a second?”
Looking up at him, she felt her heart stutter. He was identical to his brothers, but each of them had a little something different that set them apart. For Sawyer, it was the ster
n look to his face. Even as a kid, he’d had it. There was something about it that had always called to her, encouraging her to smooth the line between his brows with her mouth. She wanted to touch him just as much as she had as a kid.
Wyatt, just behind him, met her gaze, and she felt her world shift again. How could all three of the men ruin her control so easily? She looked from Wyatt’s soulful eyes to his mouth, to the small scar that cut through his upper lip. She’d been the reason for that scar.
Standing up on weak legs, she nodded and tried to pretend like she was okay. “Um, sure.”
Sasha cleared her throat and wagged her eyebrows. “Keep it PG, y’all.”
Only Maverick chuckled. Maggie glared at her sister before edging around the men and leading them out of the main room and into the empty hallway outside. They were in the small city center, but anyone who was coming to the meeting was already in the room, waiting. It was just the four of them in the hallway.
Maggie looked down at her skirt and sweater combination, her uniform of sorts, and wondered how she looked to the two men who hadn’t seen her since she was a teenager. She’d aged, of course. There were lines at the corners of her eyes, and things weren’t as perky as they’d been back then. It made her self-conscious, wondering what they’d see.
Clasping her hands together, she looked up at the three of them and then decided that wasn’t a smart idea. Her body did stupid, stupid things when she stared at them so closely. Instead, she looked down at her hands. “What is it?”
Maverick cleared his throat. “I told them about Milo.”
Lifting a finger to chew on her nail, she nodded. She’d figured that he would. She didn’t exactly expect them to call a conference about it, but she assumed they wanted to rip her a new one for hiding Milo from them. “Okay.”
Wyatt stepped forward and gently pulled her hand away from her mouth. When she looked up at him, a deep frown marred his face. He was older, too, but it looked so good on him. On all of them. White peppered their temples in the sexiest way and laugh lines added character to their eyes. It made her sad that she hadn’t watched them develop.